Mandel packs briefcases for "Deal" world tour

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - With the highly rated
"Million Dollar Mission" episodes of "Deal or No Deal" having
concluded Monday, NBC is brewing another stunt for its stalwart
game show: an around-the-world tour.

For the May sweep, the show will visit local versions of
the show in Estonia, the Philippines and South Africa.

Host Howie Mandel and contestants from the U.S. will play
the game according to the foreign set's rules. And yes, the
"Deal" girls will be locals. (Some 40 versions of "Deal" are
produced worldwide.)

"We're constantly trying to come up with new ideas to keep
the show fresh, to tweak and make the gameplay different,"
executive producer Scott St. John said. "It's been a fun
internal thing when we watch clips from the foreign versions,
so we decided we're going to explore the way they do it."

The plan comes at the close of the 19 Million Dollar
Mission episodes that have aired this season and re-energized
the show's ratings. NBC's alternative programming chief Craig
Plestis said he plans to repeat the stunt in the fall and make
the episodes a staple of the series. (No official "Deal"
renewal has been announced, but Plestis said another season can
be assumed.)

In "Deal," contestants open 26 briefcases containing values
ranging from 1 cent to $1 million, gradually paring down the
board and constantly shifting the odds of how much they'll take
home. Nobody has won the $1 million.

For the Million Dollar Mission (or MDM, as they call it at
the network), every time a contestant failed to win the top
prize, producers added $1 million case to the lineup,
increasing the likelihood of somebody winning the top prize. On
Monday night, a California couple had the board stocked with 13
of the $1 million cases, giving them a 50-50 chance of winning,
but they still came up short.

The MDM temporarily turned "Deal" into a serialized program
-- much like "Jeopardy!" during Ken Jennings' famed
ratings-boosting winning streak in 2004.
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